This Blog Has Moved!

Friday, September 23, 2011

I got a fundraising letter from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). That's pretty ironic. I'm more likely to be on their "official enemies list" rather than giving them money.

For example, the SPLC has put Rand Paul on their "official enemies" list for his "radical libertarian" beliefs. The SPLC insiders seem to think that, if you believe that government is too big, then you're a terrorist.

State propaganda organizations have a title that's usually the opposite of their true purpose. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center is an organization dedicated to promoting poverty and lawlessness.

The letter was incredibly misleading. They had a retired FBI agent write the fundraising letter for them. That made it look like it was a letter from the FBI, rather than from the SPLC. The letter also implied that there was some sort of official connection between the SPLC and the FBI. That may be true, but for the purposes of fundraising, there shouldn't be any explicit or implied connection.

I was amused to get a fundraising letter from the SPLC. I was offended that the SPLC letter implied that there was some sort of official connection between the SPLC and the FBI. It's probably one of those things that skirts the bordeline of illegal, although they'd probably win in court if someone tried to challenge it. It definitely was unethical.

7 comments:

Saul
said...

I had some Orthodox Jewish friends living in the south who were targeted and threatened by the KKK, including death threats, threats to rape the wife and children, and things actually done to their property. The local sheriff, a fundamentalist Baptist, of course would do nothing about it. They contacted the SPLC and the SPLC law center had NO INTEREST AT ALL.

The SPLC is a political organization that promotes the agendas of their sponsors. They are NOT an organization that protects minorities.

Saul is right. SPLC is a political organization - not a social or charitable outfit. But they are a bit weak on ethics even though they are outstanding on promoting poverty and lawlessness. Another FUBAR masquerading as a empathy agency we need protection FROM....

The ACLU is the other big one that does that. If you call them they check if your issue matches the list of political points they are advancing and only respond if you can help their politics. Your rights mean little to them. If coach said a prayer before the big game, they will take that, but if you got thrown in jail for criticizing a leftist government, they won't.

The exact opposite, and a great example of someone doing good deeds, is the Rutherford Association. They represent people on human rights cases without hope whose cases are too politically charged for any other lawyer to accept. They represented Paula Jones when she was trying to get justice for being raped by Bill Clinton and no one would touch her and the Clintons were on a murder rampage. The resulting shitstorm put a serious clamp down on the Clinton's illegal bullying activities as they were occupied with dealing with the Lewinsky sideshow that resulted when the feds decided to take charge of the situation and get the real rape cases off the table and make it about the one consensual case that was entangled in it all.

They then represented Jose Padilla against the Bush administration, the hispanic american that went to fight for al qaeda and was tortured.

They also have represented Amish farmers whose religions prohibits the use of elaborate technology in their septic systems.

Groups that no one gives a fuck about, but they take them on, people who are getting fucked by the system, and their clients never pay a cent.

If there is a political agenda beyond human rights and the constitution they have, it's not a coherent one. They simply don't choose to represent people because of politics, completely unlike the ACLU and SPLC

Hm, Jose Padilla was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison several years ago and now the federal appeals court, three days ago, has decided to EXTEND his sentence to 30 years to life WITHOUT TRIAL.

Actually, the sentencing guidelines are merely guidelines. A judge has the discretion to impose a sentence that is harsher or more lenient than the guidelines, unless there's an explicit statutory maximum.

I do understand that. The issue here is that he was already sentenced by a judge and now that sentence is being overturned post-conviction and replaced with a substantially harsher one by an appeal board that the prosecution not the defense appealed to.

Contact Information

About Me

FSK"s Shared Items

My Favorite Links

Here is a collection of my favorite links.

Personal Finance

For personal finance, my most frequently visited site is Yahoo Finance. Yahoo Finance has the best system for watching your stock quotes during the day. I also like the Motley Fool. Both of these websites encourage you to do independent thinking about finance.

My favorite discount online broker is Vanguard. They are not the cheapest commission-wise, but their customer service has been excellent. Plus, they give a high credit interest rate on the cash portion of your account.

Mises, Rothbard, and Austrian Economics

The school of "Austrian Economics" advocates credit-based money instead of debt-based money. There are two separate websites, www.mises.org and www.mises.net. These philosophies are a precursor to agorism. However, they still hold out false hope that the people who control the government can be convinced to switch to a fair monetary system. They fall short of the correct conclusion that government itself is the problem.

The Mises and Austrian school is still a pro-State theory of economics. They say "government should adopt a sound monetary policy instead of an unsound monetary policy". They fall short of the truth, which is "Who needs a government?"

Agorism and Anarcho-Capitalism

The primary source most commonly cited is agorism.info. Agorism.info has good introductory material, but I'm already looking for more advanced topics. I also found TOLFA interesting. The Molinari Institute has a lot of interesting links.

The source with the most advanced material on agorism is Kevin Carson's The Mutualist Blog.

This link on the History of Money has a lot of interesting bits on how bankers have controlled the world's money supply for hundreds of years or longer. Unlike most other sources, it is very short and to the point. However, their recommended solution falls short of true agorism.

Freedomain is another good read. He doesn't update his blog often, but he has a lot of good stuff posted in the past.

Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog - This is a great source. He is tough to read at times, but his content is great. He's the best source on agorism I've seen. I like to take his topics and present them in simpler language. He updates his blog sporadically, but he has a lot of great content. It's also worth reading his other books and articles, which are available from his mutualist.org website. I also like the way Kevin Carson frequently links back to his favorite older posts. Kevin Carson's Shared Items is also worth reading; it's a list of posts from other blogs that he finds interesting.

Kung-Fu Monkey. This blog is written by someone who works as a writer in the entertainment industry, which explains the high quality of writing. He sounds like a closet agorist, although he hasn't specifically mentioned that philosophy. This post on the Extrapolated Everyday Bull**** Comparison has promoted Kung-Fu Monkey from my hitlist to my "read regularly" list.

Redpillguy's Blog - His blog is relatively new, so it's hard to judge. He doesn't really update his blog that often. On the other hand, he frequently cites my content, and that's certainly the sort of thing I appreciate.

Tranarchism is another new blog. It's too soon to judge the content. On the other hand, anyone who heavily cites my stuff can't be all bad. It's too infrequently updated.

Wally Conger's Blog is another good read. However, he really has two separate blogs mixed together. He has a lot of good stuff on agorism and libertarianism. However, he also likes to talk about his favorite movies and TV shows a lot.

Blog HitlistThere are blogs I'm currently evaluating to see if they're worth a regular read. I currently manage my hitlist through Google Reader.

Honorable Mention

These blogs have some interesting content, but they don't make it into my regular reading rotation. If they improved their content or improved their posting frequency, then they would be in my regular reading list. I check back occasionally, and on a slow day I might read them.

Bill Rempel - He talks about finance and trading. He really dislikes the Federal Reserve. I'm not sure if he's come all the way to agorism yet, but perhaps he can be coaxed. He's guilty of my #1 blog pet peeve: A PARTIAL RSS FEED!

Bored Zhwazi - Has some nice content, but it really isn't updated that often. It's worth checking back once every month or two.